


be something you love and understand

by twistedingenue



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Darcy Lewis is Tony Stark's Daughter, F/M, Gen, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 02:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3592320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedingenue/pseuds/twistedingenue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s smart, but she’s not —you know, her father smart, no matter how many tutors and books and goddamn chemistry sets he sent her as she was growing up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> nemhaine42 prompted: Clint x Darcy, wherein they both have completely rotten days and simultaneously decide to escape to the roof in order to ignore their respective irks. Cute stuff, tooth-rotting fluff. Idk, just fuk me up.
> 
> and Bellonanj73 sent me: I don't know about you, but for some reason, I imagine Hawkeye strumming singing Simple Man by Shinedown/Skynard and Darcy is listening around the corner (and thus makes me think of you for some reason). Have a good day
> 
> Thank you to bluroux for a beta. Everything remaining is my own.
> 
> and then it just got out of hand. You can find me at my [ tumblr](http://twistedingenue.tumblr.com)

There are things Darcy is not ashamed of. She’s smart, but she’s not —you know, her father smart, no matter how many tutors and books and goddamn chemistry sets he sent her as she was growing up. Not even a geologist, okay fine, horticulture, kid, I could live with horticulture. Hey, Darcy, you wanna hear a joke? You can lead a whore to culture but you can’t — hey, that’s a perfectly good joke, Pepper. 

Darcy’s not ashamed that she isn’t as smart as Papa Stark. She’s not ashamed that she took after her mother’s frame but her father’s coloring. Darcy’s not even ashamed that she happily lived off her trust fund while following Jane around for years. 

But living in his tower, rent-free, not really doing anything much of use? Jane’s got a staff now. And Tony seems to keep her at arm’s length, still not trusting anyone beyond Pepper and her mother with the knowledge that he has a child. It’s the first time she’s felt shame in being alive, in existing.

Darcy’s been learning to stalk the back stairs of the tower. It’s the only place where she’s not going to run into her father. The only place she can make sure she doesn’t force a confrontation between them. He’s scared, he sure is, but he’s going to have to come to her now.

It’s the music that guides her tonight. Someone up here has a guitar and a decent voice, and picks away at both. It’s her soft spot in life. No talent of her own, of course, but you don’t need talent to appreciate music. There’s only a few people who have access up at these levels, of course, so it’s probably one of dad’s new friends.

She doesn’t want to bother the guy, but at the same time, but she doesn’t want to stop listening. She doesn’t care if its rude or an invasion of privacy, just wants to be lost in phrases, let her mind float along with the rise and fall of his voice.  
Darcy sits on the step just below the door and rests her head up against the wall. Everything here is stupid. She’s stupid, her father is an idiot, and she should just leave before she ruins everything here with her presence.

The only thing that doesn’t suck ten thousand cocks is this man’s voice. Filled to the brim with a slow burning intensity, an agony that doesn’t come with an easy life, but a sweetness too. One song finishes, and he picks about for a few moments before settling on Skynyrd. He sings Simple Man low and quiet, but Darcy knows every word by heart, and by the end, she’s singing along to herself.

Her mom had come not to like Tony so much. She didn’t hate him, but Tony would forget about Darcy for years at a time. Oh sure, the money kept coming, but Tony would only swoop in every so often to charm little girl Darcy with gifts and the way he talked. By the time she was a teenager, she knew why Simple Man was often on her playlist. And Momma would say that she hoped one day that Tony could understand the song rather than just listening to it. 

Momma said a lot of things.

Whoever is singing, it sounds like he’s still waiting to be a simple kind of man himself. The song ends, the last notes clear from where they hang, and Darcy sniffs loudly. 

The door opens. She should have guessed that her mystery singer was Hawkeye, the only one that really makes sense. He’s wearing a soft looking sweater to keep out the chill of the rooftop, loose fitting jeans and his guitar is set aside, leaning up against the wall. Hawkeye (because she’s never really been able to think of him as Clint, mostly ‘cause he doesn’t sit still long enough to have a conversation) tilts his head as if he needed to look at her from another angle, “Lewis?” he asks carefully, drawing out the words, “What you doing?”

“Like, up here or with my life in general?” Darcy stands up, wiping her nose with the back of her hand, “Because if I’m going to be honest, the answer is hazy for both.”

Hawkeye’s lips twitch, just for a split second and he steps aside to let Darcy join him outside. It’s cold up here, but it’s not a bad cold, just enough to settle in and keep her attention. He sits back down, and reaches for his guitar. Darcy leans against the door, but slowly slides down against it while he picks out random notes, not really finding a tune.

“It’s nice up here,” Darcy muses since this is a little awkward, the level of familiarity in just sitting and listening to someone play at odds with just how little she knows Hawkeye. “Great view…uh, Hawkeye?”

“It’s good,” he answers, “You can see everyone and unless they have reason, no one can look at you. And it’s Clint. Since we live together and all.”

“Yeah, we do,” for now, at least. Darcy’s plans for later are shaping up to be looking at craigslist ads.

“You don’t seem too sure about that.”

Darcy tries to wave off the conversation, but Clint pins her with a look. And okay, she came up here to escape but she’s staying because really, she needs someone to talk too. There’s no one. Jane wouldn’t understand. Thor might. Darcy figures his family situation has similar inequities, but talking family with Thor is a minefield. You never know what will send him down a path for a foul mood, and Darcy doesn’t want to do that to the guy. 

“Can you keep a secret?” Darcy says. Stupid. He’s a spy, of course he can keep a secret. But she needs to release some of her frustration to someone that isn’t her mother, and Clint seems. Well, not safe. No one is really safe. But he seems kind.

But Clint just smiles at her, amused and interested, “Who do you want me to keep it from?”

“Everyone. For now at least.” Darcy runs her fingers through her hair, twirling the ends and then straightening the lock out. Clint nods and tilts his head, waiting for her to go on. “My father’s avoiding me, and I’m kind of avoiding him and it’s going to be a lot easier to do that if I leave.”

“So what, your dad works in the tower? It’s a big tower, should be able to avoid him if you really need to, you don’t have to leave.”

“Work might be understating it. Own would be the better word.”

She’d thought that Clint might be more animated when he’s surprised, but no, his eyebrows quickly raise up, and he bobs his head along in understanding, but that’s all. “That would be a problem, then.”

“You know how on like all those fucking period tv shows and books and movies, there’s always the kid servant that looks a little too much like the master of the house and you know that it’s the bastard child? I feel like that. Unacknowledged and on a tightrope of how to behave.”

“So you want him to pay attention to you and you try to accomplish this by avoidance. Darcy, I’m not exactly the world’s best tactician, but that’s not a plan that’s going to succeed.” Clint puts down the guitar and resettles himself closer to Darcy. His smile is kind but amused, “You wanna talk to him? We can work something out and get you in the same room.”

“What would you do?” Darcy’s got a feeling that Clint could write a book on attention seeking behaviors. She’s seen the youtube videos. Everyone’s seen the youtube videos. The complications of death-defying stunts is like, number five most watched, and the sad thing is, Darcy thinks most of them are from just the past year. Clint should be endorsed by Band-Aid.

“Be the obnoxious brat you have always wanted to be,” Clint slips into a broad smirk, “I’m thinking hair up in pigtails, whining how dad never loved you —“

“Oh god, how he’d send me presents instead of spending time with me,” Darcy presses her fingers against her closed eyes, and giggles, “I would have been happy with some ice cream. What good is a trust fund?”

“Tony,” Clint raises the pitch of his voice to mimic a cartoonish version of a woman, and can’t seem to stop laughing now, “What do you think of my dad?” He returns to his normal pitch, still amused, “Be omnipresent instead of absent. Don’t leave us, You’re nice to have around.”

“Oh I am?” Darcy says, noticing how Clint’s fingers brush against her knees, and there’s a spark of interest there that just begs her to stay, stay here, stay with him, and maybe stay for him someday. But it’s just a spark, and sparks need to be fed to become flames. “I didn’t know your name until a few minutes ago and you think I’m nice to have around.”

“Well, when you hide, it’s tough to get to know you. Without being creepy. It’s really easy to be creepy when the other person is hiding and you don’t know why.”

Darcy pushes against him, “You got me there,” she sighs and looks out, “I could also just talk to Pepper and set something up.”

“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that? You want to deal with Tony, you have to out-brat him. He won’t listen otherwise. Be a Stark, Darcy. Own the world you live in.”

She’s never thought of it that way, and Darcy can learn to expand and take up her space in the world. Darcy can be a Stark just as easy as she can be her mother’s child. She’s not smart the same way that Tony is, but she is smart. And she’s smart with people. While she thinks, Clint’s taken up the guitar again and plays and she asks, “Why did you come up here?”

“Believe it or not, just for the acoustics,” Clint smiles, closing his eyes into the opening notes of a song Darcy doesn’t know, “But I’m finding the company rather nice.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many people asked for a second chapter, I just couldn't help but indulge myself. 
> 
> Thank you to Bluroux for betaing, any remaining errors are my own or simply products of Tony Stark's not-very-grammatical mind.

There is something rotten in the state and well being of the Avengers Tower. Totally rotten, and Tony is displeased. Displeased and freaked out and it’s causing him to have feelings and that is not a state of being Tony is particularly good at.

Darcy. Ok. There’s Darcy. He likes Darcy, always has, and that’s a good thing considering she is his daughter and okay okay, he’s not been a great father. He’s also not been a great human being either and those things go hand in hand. When she was younger, when he was younger, he didn’t think too much about how to be a good father, he just threw money at the situation and that had worked just fine. He wasn’t expected to do anything more than that.

But he’s older now. Darcy’s older now. He’s been building this nasty habit of self-reflection. When he looks into the mirror of parenthood it’s dear old Dad staring back at him. Doomed to repeat history, doomed to the sins of the father. His legacy, continued to the next generation. Tony is terrible at this, but he looks at Darcy and all reasonable thought evaporates.

So he avoids her. Shrugs his shoulders, leaves the room, makes minimal eye contact. She grew up knowing what type of person he is. Was. She shouldn’t be surprised. And it’s not like she’s not avoiding him either.

“Look,” he tells Pepper, when she once again tells him to just invite her up for dinner. The three of them. Because of course he told Pepper. He told Pepper the moment she noticed the regular wire transfer and was sure that Tony was embezzling or bedazzling or was hiding something terrible. Nothing terrible. Just a child. All the rest of his life choices are terrible but pretty damn public. Darcy is private. His one bit of private that he was able to keep. “Look, if it were that easy, one of us would have done it already.”

“Tony, she’s scared. She hadn’t seen you in years —“

“I went to her graduation,” Tony interrupts, “Both of them.” It’s important to do these things as a father. That Darcy had no idea he was in the audience is besides the point. He sat on cold, hard and outrageously unsafe bleachers for his girl, because these things are important.

“She hadn’t seen you in years,” Pepper repeated, not deterred by Tony’s thought process one bit and that’s the reason he loves this woman. “And she’s been part of two very near-dying experiences, her father is Iron Man, and she’s moved into his house and no one else knows that you are her father. She’s scared.”

“She doesn’t need to be,” Tony had insisted, petulant, childish because okay, yes, he’s kind of a big deal. Difficult to keep up with. A little not completely sane on a good day. And Pepper had pinned him down with one of those looks of hers that both chastised and turned him on just a little bit and explained that maybe he should just start by acknowledging her presence and not walking out sight when they are in the same room.

And that’s why there is something rotten in the state of his house. The Avengers house. His and Pepper’s place. It doesn’t really matter who has ownership of the property, the point is that there is something rotten going on. Darcy is everywhere all of a sudden. He knew she’d be in with Foster and her big beautiful brain and big beautiful formally only mythological god-boyfriend, so he didn’t go there often. Unless he needed that brain. But Foster’s usually pretty happy to come to his workshop and poke at his toys, and she’s actually really handy with a wrench. Even if she wants to solve most engineering problems with duct tape and mechanics wire, her instincts are good about equipment and theory. 

The first rotten thing is this feeling of pride that’s crushing his rib cage. Or it could be his liver, these days everything generally hurts. It happens when both are getting older and take hits like a living pinball machine, but this feeling hurts. He’s proud that Darcy works for this woman, seems to get her on some level well enough to really get her and have earned her trust and friendship. Darcy doesn’t follow in the family tradition of too smart for social skills, and while that was an affront at first, he vaguely understands the value she brings to that particular team.

So yes, something rotten. Darcy’s everywhere. Darcy walks Jane down to the workshop and waves at him. Tony awkwardly waves back, sometimes with just a finger — and not the middle one, but he waves. She comes to meals and rolls her eyes at his jokes and she sits between Thor and Clint and makes conversation across the table to Steve.

Someone had this grand idea of family dinners, and it turns out no one knows how to cook. Or at least how to cook for more than about four people. “They only let me do prep work in the circus,” Clint says, “I had a nasty habit of setting pans on fire.”

“We did take out,” Jane mentions, “My parents were both academics who didn’t really understand the concept of an oven. I never learned.” 

No one bothered to ask Tony or Thor about their lack of cooking ability. Other people cooked for them But then Thor pressed Darcy, “I have had your cooking, and you showed me how to make breakfast when we first met. Where did you learn?”

“I can’t cook for a crowd, mostly I just learned to cook large portions for myself and my mom to last a few days.”

“Your dad didn’t cook?” Clint asked, “Even my dad cooked from time to time.”

The side of her mouth twitched, and even though she wasn’t even looking up, Tony could feel the weight of her gaze. It pierced him, “He wasn’t in the picture. I think he figured as long as the child support kept coming, there was no need for him.”

Tony dropped his fork, splashing the hearty sauce that Natasha had made —anyone can make spaghetti, even former Russian spies — all over his shirt. Tony could hear the jokes that people made, but didn’t catch any of their meaning. When he gets back from his mild freakout and changing his shirt, look, he’s not proud of his lack of involvement anymore, and he has to keep from resenting Darcy throwing it in his face, because he also knows that to everyone else — she was just oversharing a little in a dinner conversation.

Darcy overshares all the time. It’s a thing he’s noticed, that she’ll pull the conversation around from an awkward or tense topic by shifting that awkward to herself, letting herself soak up the attention. It’s like an effective use of the Stark Sarcasm gene, one where it’s used for good and not to keep people at a distance. That kid, she’s something.

But then Steve has to say something, thanking Tony for “embarrassing himself for Darcy,” and Tony is not okay, but he shrugs it off as no big thing. It’s something Darcy would do for any of them. 

Tony ends up spending the night at the back of the room, watching his daughter. She’s more engaged with the team than he thought she was. He thought she stuck with Thor and Jane, that’s all. But there she is, between Clint and Natasha. They are talking, leaning back and smiling brightly and with unexpected familiarity. Clint’s dragged his guitar out of seemingly nowhere — does he hide it in the couch, is the couch big enough for that sort of thing? — and fiddles with it, trying cajole Darcy into singing.

And that’s his daughter, palling around with spies and assassins and Tony’s never wanted — scratch that... Up until about two years ago, what he wanted for his daughter was that maybe she wouldn’t hate him too much. That’s about it. 

What he _got_ was this amazingly strong girl-child and he doesn’t know what to want for her. And it’s rotting away in him. He’s already got a chest that’s been riddled with holes, he doesn’t need another one that will fester and chew away at his flesh.

“You could say something,” Pepper says, “We could invite her up for dinner, break the ice between you two.”

No, no that is not how their relationship works. This relationship is built on a foundation of avoidance. If he isn’t around, he can’t screw it up. Except that doesn’t seem to be working because now he catches Darcy alone in the common areas and she speaks to him. She calls him dad. she calls him pops. If she calls him daddy, he’s going to have wipe entire subsections of porn because that just isn’t right anymore.

Darcy’s what, twenty-five? In all his occasional visits, the sparse communication between an irresponsible and selfish dick and his daughter, she’s almost never called him anything other than Tony. 

“You know, pops, when my mom told me that Tony Stark doesn’t just show up and hand over chemistry sets to every seven year old and then leave? That he does it because he’s your father? I didn’t believe her.” Darcy tells him. Right where anyone could hear her. If anyone else was around. “It seemed about as plausible as Santa Claus, and I figured that one out real quick.”

“Yeah well, I’ve got about a dozen paternity tests that will prove it,” Also not his proudest moment, but he did patent a couple of new techniques for quickly processing genetic material out of that little endeavor. 

“I know. Momma showed me them.”

“When you were seven?” That cannot possibly be right. That’s not a concept that kids understand. Most kids anyways. He probably would have gotten it with after asking the right questions.

Darcy blinks, “I’m your daughter, don’t you think I must have been a precocious little shit?”

Tony can feel the smile that bubbles up. He could have been there for that. Probably best that he wasn’t, but he would have loved seeing her at seven with the sass and the smarts to back it up.

“Momma told me it was good that you didn’t care. She got freaked out when Princess Di died and swore it would happen to us or to you if the public found out. So I _got_ why I couldn’t tell anyone. But…” Darcy trails off and runs out of steam.   
She tilts her head to the side, staring at Tony, almost through him, “But I’m not seven anymore.”

“No you aren’t.” Tony acknowledges and tilts his head in the opposite direction because there’s something missing in this conversation. The sides are not equal, they don’t balance out like they should and he just can’t figure it out.

He’s never been good at the daughter thing. He doesn’t know how to make it right.

“Okay then,” Darcy says and leaves him alone.

Tony’s never been confused more in his life. He’s created AI’s, the most complex weapons known to man and elements, but he can’t solve for this variable. 

And Pepper won’t tell him. lt’s apparently not her responsibility, and she can’t run his entire life for him. 

 

All Pepper says is to accept Darcy. What does that even mean?

“You should think about it then and figure it out,” Pepper chides, and she’s sweet even when she’s nagging a little. But then, the nagging is a turn on for him. “You don’t want her to force the issue, do you?”

“She’s the one acting all…weird!” That’s it. Darcy’s just being weird now. “I’m not used to her. I’ve always had her as something distant, something hidden away to keep safe and sound and separated.” Darcy Lewis, a secret Stark. Not cursed with his foolishness, better to be fiercely loved by her mother than used and forgotten by her father. By him.

“But she’s here now,” Pepper smiles sadly, “She shouldn’t be forgotten by her father in plain sight Tony.”

Darcy forces the issue, and just like him, just like Tony would do, she does it in a spectacular sort of way. 

 

It’s breakfast, about a week later. (Although it’s really two in the afternoon, but it was a long sort of day yesterday and everyone’s time schedule can shift around after fighting robotic dinosaurs in Central Park. It’s a perk of the whole Avenging job. It is!)

It’s two in the afternoon, and Tony is waking up with a pot of coffee and a smoothie that might be more milkshake than health food, and Steve is thinking that in large enough quantities he might be able to make passable scrambled eggs for everyone and Darcy walks in wearing Clint’s shirt and a pair of baggy sleep shorts.

Tony knows it’s Clint’s shirt. It’s the purple button-down that Clint had been wearing just before they all suited up before Jurassic Park happened. No one else blinks at this, but Tony does. Tony just stares at Darcy.

Here’s the thing. Darcy’s been his daughter for a long time. She’s a concrete thing, even if he treated her a theoretical. Tony has a daughter. She’s smart, but not like he’s smart — which he thanks the spirit of Carl Sagan for because it means she’s far more level-headed than Tony is. She’s beautiful and hilarious and opinionated, all the reasons he stayed far away.

And Clint’s behind her, slipping an arm around her waist as he reaches for a cup of coffee. Thankfully, he’s not wearing Darcy’s clothes but instead the expression of the recently well-rested. And no. 

“No, wait, when did,” he wiggles his fingers back and forth between Darcy and Clint, “What?”

“A few weeks,” Darcy states evenly, “At least seriously.”

“What — why didn’t you tell me?” Okay, even Tony knows that this is irrational. Darcy is a grown woman, able to make her own decisions, but Darcy is still his daughter, okay? He’s always wanted her to be happy and not in danger. Dating Barton is a danger. Hanging out with Barton is a danger. You just seem to end up in dumpsters when Barton is around. “You shouldn’t end up in a dumpster.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Darcy mutters.

“Hey, that was one time.”

“Three times,” Natasha says from the back corner. “But to be fair, you fell in one twice.”

“Dumpsters!” Tony yells and because he’s a fan of the attention, raises his arms up.

“I don’t think you have any say in who Darcy dates,” Steve says with his serious face. Not the serious face, Tony hates the serious face! It means Steve is going to want to talk later and Tony doesn’t really think it’s fair that he gets lectures from another man who picks fights.

“Unless there is a reason that you should have a say,” Natasha needles and provokes, stabbing Tony right through what’s left of his heart. 

Oh. Oh, he thinks, and sees the look on Darcy’s face. It’s a little wistful, a little pissed off and anxious. She wants something to happen here, she’s waiting on Tony for something. “Do you have a reason, Tony?”

Something breaks in the air around him, some final push of inevitability about what exactly is rotten around here. It’s him and it’s always been him. Darcy’s not done a thing to deserve his standoffishness and Tony twitches his mouth and blinks, “It’s not a reason to have a say, but don’t people generally tell their father when they have a boyfriend.”

“Well, finally!” Clint says, “I thought we were going to have to make out in front of him for him to say something. Technically, I was living here first, so really, you brought your daughter here for me to meet. Thanks Tony, I owe you one.”

This is not okay. Darcy’s warm and bashful smile is okay though, and Tony may have just figured out what was missing between them. He ignores Steve’s quick questioning gaze and Natasha’s knowing smile. Darcy holds out her arms, her fingers spread wide, “I’m not calling you daddy. Like, ever, just so you know.”

“Oh thank god. And I am not hugging you, not until you shower and don’t have dirty laundry all over you, have some self respect child.” He’s not sure how it happens, but she hugs him, for the first time since she was nine, and he remembers how much he didn’t want to let that awkward moment go. He’s got to do better now.


End file.
